A lot of newcomers to the BBQ world have a few questions and some of them revolve around marinades. Questions like who do i have to use a marinade? And what is it anyway? A marinade is just really a simple sauce which is developed by the cook to flavor and tenderize what you are cooking. Usually this is for meats, but marinades can also be used for vegetables. The time that you marinate is important also. For most cases you will soak what you are going to barbecue in for a couple of hours. A lot of times if it is a tougher cut of meat, you can marinate it overnight in the refrigerator. But for vegetables and fish, only about an hour, two at the most.
Example: the acid which you might use when marinating fish will actually cook the fish if you leave it in there too long. This will do the same thing for chicken also, so be careful when using an acid, or lemon juice when marinating chicken or fish. As your food is sitting in the marinade in the refrigerator for a few hours, up to a day or two (really) what is going on is that the meat is absorbing the flavors of what you put in the marinade. This way when you cook/grill the meat it is more tender and flavorful. I mean, after all, isn't this what we are trying to achieve?
We will get into the basics of a marinade is just a second, but first, here is a note. When you wish to use your marinade to tenderize the meat, you need to add that acid I was talking about. This can be vinegar, red wine vinegar, red wine, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice. All it does is attack the fibrous, connective tissues which make some cuts of meat tough and it breaks them down and makes themm more tender and less stringy. Like I said previously, though, you cannot take too long with either fish or chicken. The chicken will turn to mush. Been there, done that, listen to the voice of experience. And as for fish, unless you are trying to make ceviche, not too long on the fish either.
So since we are answering the question of why do I have to use marinade? And what is it anyway? Here is one good reason to use a marinade. It will keep your meat from drying out. It moistens it. This does not mean that you can leave it on the grill longer though. But what it does mean is that if you are planning on using a marinade and putting it in the fridge overnight, then you will have to start planning you BBQ meal a little sooner. Marinades do not really work all that well if you pull something out of the fridge and slop something on it and then go fire up the grill. Never forget our overall agenda and goal and that is to make you the BBQ King of your cul-de-sac (neighborhood).
Ok, ok, enough said, you have me convined, I need to marinade. What is it? And how do I make it? Simple, simple, simle. A marinade is just an acid, an oil, touch of sugar and herbs or spices for extra flavor. What do you mean by all that? Well, here is a good marinade:
* 2 cups vegetable oil
* 3/4 cup white vinegar
* 1/4 cup of molasses
* 2 T of soy sauce love cooking and grilling with this stuff)
* 2 T of lemon pepper
* and garlic and onion to taste. You can use powder, or minced, or diced and place it in with the marinade. Whisk this all together in a bowl and put your fish or chicken in it and let it sit for bit. Another good basic marinade is just vinegar, olive oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper and then you add whatever herbs and spices you like. It could be diced green onions, shallots, peppercorns, (black or white, or pink) basil, oregano, whatever you like the taste of. Go ahead and experiment with it. You already know that I am a fan of grill marks and garlic!
Go crazy and instead of vinegar, try orange juice, pineapple juice, something like that. Myabe instead of molasses, try brown sugar, turbinado sugar, stevia. How about sherry vinegar, champagne vinegar, do you see a pattern here? It is your BBQ, you are the one doing this. Try experimenting on different ways of doing this. When you think about it, this is one of the cheapest ways to learn a new technique. You can use zucchinie, or chicken tenders and the amount (kinda small) is so little that it is not going to cost you a lot to learn this. I mean, hey, come on, you go out and buy a bottle of soy sauce. Now how many marinades are you ging to have to make to use up that entire bottle? The same goes for a bag of brown sugar, basil. We won't even mention garlic since you should have that in your house all the time anyway.
Basically, what I am saying is that for the cost of the various items you will need, you are going to get so many different variations of marinades from it that it is extremely cost effective to use this technique, not only to experiment on, but to master from.
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